Professor Detlef Weigel ForMemRS

Director, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.

Professor Detlef Weigel is a pioneer in Arabidopsis molecular genetics. His work has defined new mechanisms in developmental timing and patterning, and he was the first to link a micro RNA to plant development. His interest in the genetic basis of natural variation enable him to provide profound insights into development, light responses, hybrid fitness and reproductive isolation, and revealed new mechanisms in genetic incompatibility. He has led Arabidopsis genome-based investigations, first through activation tagging, then developing a plant expression atlas and more recently spearheading the effort to sequence the genomes of 1001 natural A. thaliana strains, as well as related Brassicaceae.